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Devotion... 

Devotion is the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of mind and all things. As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion, which itself generates glimpses of the nature of mind, and these glimpses only enhance and deepen our devotion to the master who is inspiring us. So in the end devotion springs out of wisdom: devotion and the living experience of the nature of mind become inseparable and inspire each other.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 


“No matter how painful our early experiences were, our Essence cannot be harmed. Our Essence is waiting for the opportunity to reveal itself. In a very true sense, we are waiting for the opportunity to become ourselves. Our spirit is yearning to break free, to express itself ...

Oh yes, this one will be one to remember! I know there will be tons of New Year’s predictions coming at you from all directions, but remember how many of them fall far short of actually happening. That is because nothing is sealed in cement on our world – human activities and emotions constantly affect the frequencies around us and produce unexpected results. What is sealed in cement, so to speak, is the eternal movement of the planets and energies in space, moving in their created universal patterns, eternity after eternity.

Death - 

Body lying flat on a last bed,
Voices whispering a few last words,
Mind watching a final memory glide past:
When will that drama come for you?

VII.TH DALAI LAMA

Death - 


It is important to reflect calmly, again and again, that death is real and comes without warning.

Don’t be like the pigeon in the Tibetan proverb: He spends all night fussing about, making his bed, and dawn comes up before he has even had time to go to sleep.

Love + Life 

The lover of goodness loves every little sign of goodness. He overlooks the faults and fills up the gaps by pouring out love and supplying that which is lacking. This is real nobility of soul. Religion, prayer, and worship, are all intended to ennoble the soul, not to make it narrow, sectarian or bigoted. One cannot arrive at true nobility of spirit if one is not prepared to forgive the imperfections of human nature. For all men, whether worthy or unworthy, require forgiveness, and only in this way can one rise above the lack of harmony and beauty, until at last one arrives at the stage when one begins to reflect all that one has collected.

Truth -- 


"I see and find beauty in Truth or through Truth. All Truth, not merely true ideas, but truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs are highly beautiful. People generally fail to see beauty in Truth, the ordinary man runs away from and becomes blind to the beauty in it. Whenever we begin to see beauty in truth, then true art will arise."

~ Mohandas K Gandhi

Ponderance~ 


The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.

CHUANG TZU

PEACE TO THE WORLD! 

"Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world. I fold them in prayer, and they draw from the heavens light."

—St. Francis of Assisi

Blessings ~ 

om purnamidah purnamidam
purnat purnamudacyate purnasya purnamadaya
purna-eva-vasisyate

That is the whole, this is the whole; from the whole, the whole becomes manifest; taking away the whole from the whole, the whole remains.

~Isavasya Upanishad

CHRISTMAS 2010 


Maintain peace through all circumstances since it is all temporary and illusionary. Reflect love, mature and learn from all your experiences. Extend love to all situations. When peace is achieved it becomes contagious and those around us want the same peace. Let it be Peace on Earth and let begin with me. Abundance is all around us. Set your goals, follow your dreams, and stand for what you believe in. Concentrate on a positive mental state and most of all…. believe in yourself. Everything that you have or everything that you see was ounce a thought. Spirit is wisdom. Be quiet and discover yourself by spending time along. Experience quiet time and bring a small piece into your life by meditating, breath work, or yoga. Become a temple of beauty.

Obstacles ~ 

When little obstacles crop up on the spiritual path, a good practitioner does not lose faith and begin to doubt, but has the discernment to recognize difficulties, whatever they may be, for what they are—just obstacles, and nothing more. It is the nature of things that when you recognize an obstacle as such, it ceases to be an obstacle. Equally, it is by failing to recognize an obstacle for what it is, and therefore taking it seriously, that it is empowered and solidified and becomes a real blockage.

Ponderance~ 

"I became aware of the world’s tenderness, the profound beneficence of all that surrounded me, the blissful bond between me and all of creation, and I realized that the joy I sought in you was not only secreted within you, but breathed around me everywhere, in the speeding street sounds, in the hem of a comically lifted skirt, in the metallic yet tender drone of the wind, in the autumn clouds bloated with rain. I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all, or a predaceous sequence of chance events, but the shimmering bliss, beneficent trepidation, a gift bestowed upon us and unappreciated."

— Vladimir Nabokov

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE! 

light shine and dark comfort!
happy eclipsing...

Change of seasons ~ 

Darkness increases and so does responsibility.
So many people. So much to do.
One cannot be perfect for everyone.
It is enough to do the best that one can
And fix what needs to be fixed.
Do not make promises. Do not voice criticism.
Strive to improve your techniques.
Do not rely on others. Do the job yourself.
One can be crippled by criticism… within and without.
Silence is golden.
Actions speak louder than words.

Ponderance~ 

The way to discover the freedom of the wisdom of egolessness, the masters advise us, is through the process of listening and hearing, contemplation and reflection, and meditation. They advise us to begin by listening repeatedly to the spiritual teachings. As we listen, they will keep on and on reminding us of our hidden wisdom nature.

Gradually, as we listen to the teachings, certain passages and insights in them will strike a strange chord in us, memories of our true nature will start to trickle back to us, and a deep feeling of something homely and uncannily familiar will slowly awaken.

Impermanence ~ 

There is an underbelly of terror to all life. It is suffering, it is hurt. Deep within all of us are intense fears that have left few of us whole. Life’s terrors haunt us, attack us, leave ugly cuts. To buffer ourselves, we dwell on beauty, we collect things, we fall in love, we desperately try to make something lasting in our lives. We take beauty as the only worthwhile thing in this existence, but it cannot veil cursing, violence, randomness, and injustice."

— Deng Ming-Dao

KIndness -- 

Kind words can be short and easy to speak
But their echoes are endless -


~Mother Theresa

ponderance~ 

Speak only about what you love and what you want to have happen.
That is my sincere path.
Goddess is in charge.
Everything in Divine Order.

submitted by Peggy Daugherty

Solstice tea cancelled 


due to recent relentless winter storms and subsequent damage to the OMpalace, the winter solstice tea gathering on Dec 19th is regretfully cancelled.

Blessed Solstice, Full Moon/Eclipse

Teacher & Student 

The tragedy of knowledge is that the teacher speaks from his level of consciousness and the student receives from his level. In other words, depending on what color of glasses one is wearing, one sees everything in that color. So, a teacher may speak about love. If I am a greedy man, I will subconsciously think "Oh, how clever that teacher is in speaking about love. This is the way the teacher is drawing students to get more money." My greed will color every thought, even subconsciously.

If the teacher says "Meditate to realize God", or "Sing bhajans to realize God", or prescribes pujas and other practices, students may devoutly follow the practices in a mechanical way. It's good to remember that the purpose behind all these practices is to shut out external distractions and culture love in the heart. God is love. That is His very nature. If love does not develop, then the practices are next to worthless. Therefore, light the candle of love in one's heart.

Consistency ~ 

Sadhana means spiritual practice. It can mean any type of spiritual practice - meditation, puja, fasting on certain days, repeating God's name, maintaining silence for five minutes, not speaking lies, anything that moves us towards God. The most important aspect of sadhana is consistency. If we only do sadhana when we "feel" like it, or when we "have time", or when it is "convenient" then it is a sort of waste of time.

For best results, sadhana should be done every day at the same time. The Dalai Lama is a good example. He is a very busy man, constantly jetting around the world, visiting with thousands of admirers, meeting world leaders and so forth. But every day, he spends several hours doing his meditation and prayers, even if he is in a jet plane traveling across some ocean.

We may feel lost in materiality and that the odds of ever making much spiritual progress are close to zero. But even if we can adopt one small piece of sadhana with faith and perseverance, the light in our life will grow and grow. Saints tell us that our very nature, our very breath, is God. So how can it be that we long forget? To remove our delusion, we need faith, patience, and steady sadhana.

Nowhere and Everywhere 

I’m amazed that we ever find anything to say about a system that is not a system. About something that leads to nowhere. At least, simultaneously nowhere and everywhere.

Generally after I give a lecture I follow up with an informal talk. Tonight I’ll give a few facts about the system we work with, or at least the system of thinking that we’re involved in. And I prefer to have you ask questions because we get to the heart of the matter much more quickly that way. We get to what you want to know, while I could talk for two days and never hit the point of understanding for you.

This I consider a unique system or unique group. It has to do with self-definition. Some systems seem to be geared strictly to utility. To improve your business or serve as an anesthetic if your thinking becomes too traumatic.

Regardless, we are searchers after the truth. And you may immediately say, “Well, what do you consider the truth?” We don’t. I don’t ask you to consider what is the truth. I ask you to try to find inconsistencies and retreat from those inconsistencies.

~ by Richard Rose, beginning a talk in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 12, 1974.

REALITY 

So many veils and illusions separate us from the stark knowledge that we are dying. When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.

Sir Thomas More, I heard, wrote these words just before his beheading: “We are all in the same cart, going to execution; how can I hate anyone or wish anyone harm?” To feel the full force of your mortality, and to open your heart entirely to it, is to allow to grow in you that all-encompassing, fearless compassion that fuels the lives of all those who wish truly to be of help to others.

Deliver yourself~ 


"To deliver oneself up, hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hill, or sea, or desert: to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silences with light. To pray and work in the morning and to labor in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and special vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence."

— Thomas Merton

Buddha nature ~ 

Our buddha nature has an active aspect, which is our “inner teacher.” From the very moment we became obscured, this “inner teacher” has worked tirelessly for us, tirelessly trying to bring us back to the radiance and spaciousness of our true being. Not for one second, my master Jamyang Khyentse said, has the inner teacher given up on us. In its infinite compassion, one with the infinite compassion of all the buddhas and all the enlightened beings, it has been ceaselessly working for our evolution—not only in this life but in all our past lives—using all kinds of skillful means and all types of situations to teach and awaken us and to guide us back to the truth

COSMIC STORY -- 

Cosmic Story: "Da"
This is a story from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

One time the gods appraoched Prajapati (Lord Brahma, the creator) and said "Please, O' Lord, give us your instruction!" Brahma said "Da". He asked them "Do you understand?" They said "Yes. We gods are involved in all kinds of celestial pleasures. "Da" means damyah, that we should learn to control our senses." Brahma was pleased with their reply and said "Yes, you have understood."

Men were also students of Prajapati. They approached Prajapati and said "Please, O' Lord, give us instruction. Brahama said "Da". He asked them "Do you understand?" They said "Yes. We men have a tendency towards greed and attachment. "Da" means datta, to give in charity." Prajapati was pleased with their answer and said "Yes, you have understood."

Next the demons approached Prajapati. "Please, O' Lord, give us your instruction!." Brahma said "Da". "Do you understand?" he asked. "Yes, you are saying that we demons tend towards cruel acts. You mean dayadhvam, that we should exercise compassion." Prajapati was pleased with their answer and said "Yes, you have understood."

The same words will be interpreted by others according to the needs and intelligence of the listeners.

Poetry -- 

Visiting the Graveyard

When I think of death
it is a bright enough city,
and every year more faces there
are familiar

but not a single one
notices me,
though I long for it,
and when they talk together,

which they do
very quietly,
it’s in an unknowable language -
I can catch the tone

but understand not a single word -
and when I open my eyes
there’s the mysterious field, the beautiful trees.
There are the stones.

—Mary Oliver,

Prayer -- 

"There is an endless net of threads

throughout the universe.

The horizontal threads are in space.

The vertical threads are in time.

At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual.

And every individual is a crystal bead.

And every crystal bead reflects

not only the light from every other crystal in the net,

but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe"


--The Rig Veda (Rig Veda version by Frank Joseph)

Samsara 

If we were to put our minds to one powerful wisdom method and work with it directly, there is a real possibility we would become enlightened.

Our minds, however, are riddled with confusion and doubt. I sometimes think that doubt is an even greater block to human evolution than is desire or attachment. Our society promotes cleverness instead of wisdom, and celebrates the most superficial, harsh, and least useful aspects of our intelligence. We have become so falsely “sophisticated” and neurotic that we take doubt itself for truth, and the doubt that is nothing more than ego’s desperate attempt to defend itself from wisdom is deified as the goal and fruit of true knowledge.

This form of mean-spirited doubt is the shabby emperor of samsara, served by a flock of “experts” who teach us not the open-souled and generous doubt that Buddha assured us was necessary for testing and proving the worth of the teachings, but a destructive form of doubt that leaves us nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, and nothing to live by.

Complexity -- 

Man likes complexity. He does not want to take only one step; it is more interesting to look forward to millions of steps. The man who is seeking the truth gets into a maze, and that maze interests him. He wants to go through it a thousand times more. It is just like children. Their whole interest is in running about; they do not want to see the door and go in until they are very tired. So it is with adults. They all say that they are seeking truth, but they like the maze. That is why the mystics made the greatest truths a mystery, to be given only to the few who were ready for them, letting the others play because it was the time for them to play.

Upanishads ... 


All the spiritual teachers of humanity have told us the same thing, that the purpose of life on earth is to achieve union with our fundamental, enlightened nature. It says in the Upanishads: There is the path of wisdom and the path of ignorance. They are far apart and lead to different ends. . . . Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither like the blind led by the blind. What lies beyond life shines not to those who are childish, or careless, or deluded by wealth.

be prepared... 

The fundamental message of the Buddhist teachings is that if we are prepared, there is tremendous hope, both in life and in death. The teachings reveal to us the possibility of an astounding and finally boundless freedom, which is ours to work for now, in life—the freedom that will also enable us to choose our death and so to choose our next birth.

For someone who has prepared and practiced, death comes not as a defeat but as a triumph, the crowning and most glorious moment of life.

PONDERANCE 


"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake."

~ Meister Eckhart

Meditation ~ 


In the ancient meditation instructions, it is said that at the beginning, thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually, as you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea, and finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.

Ponderance~ 


Taking life seriously does not mean spending our whole lives meditating as if we were living in the Himalaya Mountains or in the old days in Tibet. In the modern world, we have to work to earn our living, but we should not get entangled in a nine-to-five existence, where we live without any view of the deeper meaning of life.

Our task is to strike a balance, to find a middle way, to learn not to overextend ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations, but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy balance in modern life is simplicity.

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